Very good points about the innate hardness of the skull and what missing your target by a few inches during the heat of combat can be disastrous to your hand(s).

The theory of the evolved tendency to form a grip/fist in order for our primate ancestors to avoid falling down from trees is also quite interesting. A few years ago I took a course on human development and I recall a discussion on how babies tend to also instinctively grip onto fingers and arms. The theory presented by the professor was that it was adaptive for the babies and young children of our ancestors to instinctively grip their mother's arms in dangerous situations when an immediate sprint through the jungle was necessary.

Thank you to Josan for the bareknuckle video, I watched the first 10 mins and then bookmarked the site for later viewing. I read Jack Dempsey's Championship Fighting book a couple of years ago and if I recall correctly, he actually advises using a vertical fist with the impact distributed across the bottom 3 knuckles.

There seems to be some debate as to which of the vertical and horizontal fist are more structurally sound. Some modern practitioners argue that Dempsey's old school style of punching is now outdated and that the horizontal fist is superior. The seiken (horizontal fist) is not common in the Uechi style but it is quite prevalent in Shuri-te derivative styles (all of which are bareknuckle fighting systems). Why didn't the Japanese adopt a vertical fist and why do they put the force on the first 2 knuckles? Is it because they like to chamber their punches and put a snap in it which ultimately leaves their punch in a horizontal position at the moment of impact?

Here's a video of a boxing instructor discussing proper fist formation (as he sees it) for bareknuckle boxing. Note that his stated motivation for putting the force onto the front two knuckles has as much to do with (if not more to do with) maximizing the damage to your opponent as safeguarding the bones in your hand.

Dempsey does advocate the three knuckles, I achieve this by referencing the center of the fist, leading so the alignment takes care of itself.

Apologies, for the wrong impression.

As to vertical/horizontal I think its a question of range, and I think the rotation of tma shows this.

No range fist palm up , mid vertical , longer 45 over towards horizontal you start landing with the other knuckles. I dont go past 45 before contact , maybe some medically minded folks can chime in but I beleive at this point the bones in the forearm actually start crossing over themselves .

The real issues is the alignment and power arc behind the fist more so then the knuckles IMHO , is the link to the elbow Directly in line or are you shearing the fist off, is there somewhere for the return force to go.

If you look at some of the angles some systema groups use on first glance you'd question there wrist support.

But because of the power line deviation is possible

The easiest visualisation is imagining a blade protruding from the centre of your fist , how would you put that blade in.

Its a complicated buisness the obsession with straight punches compicates karates take , as does the move away from the specialist fist postions which again change the angles.

I am with you, Marcus. And I know you speak from experience because you have done full contact KO fighting in hundreds of matches.

Where I see problems, is that the techniques we learn must be programmed with a view to remain 'functional' in the 'fog of war' where many mistakes will be made, especially under the grip of the chemical cocktail.

the modified fist compensates for the angles , I heard a story of Funakoshi teaching this fist in his later years at universitys in Japan and it being belittled as they had progressed to the modern fist , it was referred to as a farmers fist .

you can see it here on the cover of rentan goshin jitsu , and early work , however im not sure if it was used as a knuckle or double shoken type strike .

Van its always the fog of war and I agree , hence the hammer , so primal , all this stuff is going to take much programming so choose wisely , also of course breaking your fist isnt a big deal in the heat of combat its more an aftermath issue , usually youll punch through the pain in my experience , if you even notice.

I also like like the leopard fist but it takes a lot of development strength wise.

Last edited by Stryke on Sun Mar 03, 2013 4:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

The problem is one of perception and incorrect information. I know from Wing chun, the chaining punch doesn't really exist, it's just a poor representation of the original punch, which looks more like an uppercut, also from what I have researched it was originally a one knuckle punch, just as in Uechi, and it travels on an upward trajectory so you have to be really close , in BO range really, just think uppercut and that's the range, and you can see how similar Uechi and WC are , they have just forgotten the original bits of an older system.from that range the uppercut one knuckle punch range, the backfist and the carotid artery shuto to the neck are natural extensions.but you have to be really close none of this one step business, it's no step striking, you are that close.that';s were the sticking hands comes in, and sanchin is just shorthand for a couple of really effective sticking /trapping techniques IMHO

This comes from a great Saturday morning conversation with my training buddy Rick Bottomley and I joking refer to these discussions as “The Secret Teachings of Master Ley”.

The discussion we had took in many directions but some of what Rick was saying brought into focus a way to gage how much of our training might be geared towards helping us in a real situation.

Now before I begin this is not a comment on how anyone chooses to train or what they choose to focus on in their school. Do what you want and focus on what you want.

This is for those reading these threads who are hoping to cover some reality in their training.

What you do when attacked is based on time and opportunity.

Creating time and creating opportunity should be a focus of training including reading intent (but that is another thread.)

POINTS:

The greater the time you have the more opportunity you have to respond.

1. Therefore the more time you have the more opportunity you have to respond with a “trained response.”

Less time gives you less opportunity to respond.

2. Therefore with less time you have to have good “conditioned reflexes.”

Take more time away and you take away more opportunities.

3. Therefore with the least time (that still allows a response) you will respond with “instinctive reactions.”

When we look at true assaults the aggressor wants to give you no time to respond at all, so logically then we begin the review of our training by looking at our instinctive reactions. This thread has gone over types of instinctive reactions.

Instinctive reactions are fine if they serve our purpose.

Throwing the hands up to protect the face is an even better reaction if it points an elbow at the incoming aggressor.

So improving on those instinctive reactions we have to look at how close our conditioned reflexes align to our instinctive reactions. (Pointing the elbow at the incoming aggressor is a conditioned reflex.)

If our desired conditioned reflexes are too different from our instinctive reaction the chances of fine tuning and moving instinctive reactions into conditioned reflexes drops drastically.

From there we look at our trained responses and how close they are aligned to our conditioned reflexes.

The closer the alignment from our trained responses to our conditioned reflexes to our instinctive reactions the closer our training is to preparing for reality even when training trained responses. And trained responses are good when we can pull them off.

If our trained responses are too different from our desired conditioned reflexes then the chances of doing them with less time diminishes.

Drills:

Drills should work from more time to work on trained responses to less time to work on conditioned reflexes to almost no time to see how fine-tuned our instinctive reactions have become.

So the first review is how closely your trained responses align with your conditioned reflexes and how closely your conditioned reflexes align with your instinctive reactions.

The second review is of your training drills and the percentage that focus on training responses that are close to conditioned reflexes that are based off of instinctive reactions and how often you work on drills reducing the response time will help you gage your type of training.

If your drills always give you enough time to work on trained responses but you want to work on increasing the efficiency and the effectiveness of your training for a real assault then you need to look at adding different drills to your curriculum.

The guy with the fire extinguisher, while having good intentions, was spraying into the face of the victim and actually killing him because the carbon dioxide in those extinguishers displaces oxygen (that's how they put out fires) so the guy would suffer asphyxia. He unloaded in his face and in the elevator and then the elevator doors closed, creating a nice confined space with little ventilation.